Chances

by Jackie Collins

Cindy broke into peals of laughter. “Come to call on him! You come to call on girls, stupid—not men!”

  He was speechless. His mind was racing. What was she doing in Gino’s room anyway? He had witnessed his friend’s grief at the news of Leonora’s marriage. Had it all been some big act? “When will Gino be back?” he asked stiffly.

  She gave an indifferent shrug. “I don’t know.”

  Costa shuffled uncomfortably. “May I come in and wait?”

  “Oh, no,” she said primly, “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I’m Gino’s friend, Costa Zennocotti. He was expecting me earlier but I was delayed.”

  “You know somethin’”—she winked—“you talk real nice. Where you from?”

  “San Franci—” he began. Then he stopped abruptly as he heard the sound of heavy footsteps mounting the stairs two at a time.

  Gino bound into view, looking remarkably cheerful. “Costa! Where y’bin? Thought you was comin’ by at twelve.”

  “I was, but I—”

  “See you met Cindy,” Gino interrupted. Then, realizing how it must look, he added rather lamely, “She’s just a friend I’m helpin’ out.”

  The three of them crowded into the small room. Costa glanced at the rumpled bed, most of the covers strewn on the floor. Then his glance took in Cindy’s dress.

  “Listen, kid,” Gino said to Cindy, “I want you to throw my things in a suitcase. I’m just gonna take a walk with Costa—then we’ll get outa here.”

  She smoothed down her dress. “Sure, but I gotta get somethin’ to wear. I can’t walk around in this.”

  “Don’t worry ’bout it. We’ll get you some stuff later.” He put his arm around Costa’s shoulder and guided him out of the room.

  Once on the street he started to talk. “I wanna be straight with you, kid. Yeh. I’m screwin’ her. But the first time was last night. An’ let me tell y’somethin’—that was the first time I bin with a woman since I met Leonora.” He laughed mirthlessly. “You like it, kid? Gino the Ram bin Gino the sucker. Now I’m gonna make up for lost time ’cause I don’t like bein’ the sucker.”

  “I understand—” Costa began.

  “The fuck y’do!” exclaimed Gino. “I don’t even understand myself. What I do know is I want you t’keep your mouth shut. It suits me t’say I’m still engaged.”

  “Of course. I won’t say anything.”

  “You’d better not, kid. Not unless you want your head busted.”

  Costa was hurt. “You can trust me. Surely you know that by now.”

  Gino screwed up his eyes, “Yeh… I guess.” Then he jabbed playfully at Costa’s stomach. “C’mon, kid, today’s movin’ day—you’re gonna give us a hand.”

  The rest of Costa’s trip to New York flew by. He spent every day with Cindy and Gino, helping them furnish the apartment, going to movies, shopping for clothes on Fifth Avenue, and generally hanging out. Occasionally Gino would vanish back to the old neighborhood for a meeting, but he always returned within hours, and while he was away Cindy would entertain him with her movie-star imitations. She did a great Dolores Costello and a perfect Lillian Gish.

  Every night he had to return to the Lanzas’ residence by 6 P.M. “It’s so goddamn stupid!” Gino exclaimed. “Tell the old bag you’ll be late tonight.” Costa didn’t have the courage.

  On his last night Gino wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Fuck ’em,” he said. “What the hell, they can’t do nothin’. We’re goin’ on the town—no argument.”

  Costa hadn’t argued, and it had been the best time of his whole trip. He had ended up doing things he had only done with the San Francisco whore on the floor of Gino’s living room with a girl who had joined them at the speakeasy they went to. God, it was exciting! He staggered back to the Beekman Place house in time for breakfast.

  A stony-faced Mrs. Lanza greeted him in the hall with his suitcase fully packed. “Your father will be hearing from me,” she said, handing him his suitcase and slamming the door in his face.

  Costa went straight back to Gino’s apartment and stayed there until it was time to catch his train. Cindy kissed and hugged him. “We’ll miss ya, kid,” she said, a girlish imitation of Gino.

  Once on the train, he settled back to savor the trip in his mind. He wasn’t concerned with what punishment Franklin would mete out to him. It had all been worth it.

  Only one thing worried him. He had not told Gino about Leonora’s being pregnant. But it wasn’t important. When she had the baby, he would delay telling his friend about it for a few months. That way he would never know the truth. The last thing Costa ever wanted to do was hurt Gino.

  Cindy stretched and giggled. “Alone at last! What we gonna do without the kid?” She lay back on the large bed and extended her leg through the slit in her champagne satin nightgown.

  Gino ran his hand up her leg. “We’ll find somethin’ to occupy us.”

  Cindy giggled again and slid down the bed, the satin nightgown riding up around her waist.

  His hands traveled up her thighs and pushed their way into her thick triangle of golden pubic hair. She caught her breath and gave a little gasp of excitement as he lowered his head. “Oh!” she whispered. “I love it when you do that. I just love it so much!”

  “Yeh?” He paused for breath. “Tell me about it, babe.”

  She was shivering with bliss. “I love your tongue, your mouth, your hands. Oohh… Gino… OOOhhh….” She shuddered, arched her back, and climaxed.

  “Talk ’bout the two-second wonder!” he complained.

  She rolled onto her stomach. “I can’t help it. It’s just soooo good. Nobody ever did that t’me befpre.”

  “Yeh?” He was pleased.

  “Y’know Pinky never licked me there. Pinky said all girls was dirty an’ he wasn’t puttin’ his mouth there.”

  Gino’s hard-on subsided like a deflated soufflé. “Shit!” he exclaimed sharply.

  “Wassamatter?”

  He climbed off the bed. “What the fuck you talkin’ ’bout Pinky for?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t wanna know what Pinky did or didn’t do.”

  “Sony.”

  “Pinky. Jeeze! How y’could ever have shacked up with him in the first place beats me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Will y’stop sayin’ sorry?”

  “Sorry.”

  Gino stamped into the bathroom. Fuckin’ Pinky Banana. And what was he, Gino Santangelo, doin’ with one of his castoffs?

  He glared at himself in the ornate wall mirror, filled a tumbler with water, and rinsed out his mouth.

  He was busy shaving when Cindy came sliding in. She stood behind him, pressing her body close. “Baby’s turn now,” she lisped, reaching for him.

  He shook her away. “Cut it out,” he said sharply. “I got a meetin’.”

  She retreated, wise enough not to argue.

  He finished shaving and walked into the bedroom to dress. He had bought himself a lot of new clothes, and he carefully selected a black suit with a wide white stripe, a dark brown shirt, polka-dot tie, and brown patent shoes.

  “You look swell, honey,” Cindy breathed. “Who you meetin’?”

  Questions about who he was meeting he didn’t need. Maybe it was time to mention her California trip. “I may not be home till late,” he growled, ignoring her question. “See ya,” and he was gone.

  She waited until he was out of earshot, and then she screamed. Bastard! He was ready to dump her. Bastard!

  Only little Cindy wasn’t ready to be dumped. Little Cindy had to think of a way to make herself indispensable.

  That shouldn’t be too difficult. Underneath all the strut Gino was an easy touch. Hadn’t Pinky always said so?

  Gino strode over to Park Avenue, paused there, and took the small engraved card from his pocket. Mrs. Clementine Duke, I am comin’ to call.

  He noted the address once more. Real hot address in the upper Sixties between Park and Madison.
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  It was a nice day, crisp and sunny. He decided to walk all the way.

  He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his new camel’s-hair coat and thought about the preceding weeks. Yeh. They had been O.K.

  With Cindy he had made up for lost time sexually—and how! She was a little wildcat, ready to try anything. At first it had been exciting—but she was always there, ready to open her legs. An occasional no might have been nice.

  Still… she would be moving soon. And she had gotten him through the worst time—although she didn’t know it.

  They had enjoyed themselves fixing up the apartment. It was only a small place, but it was home. Before, it had always been some lousy rat hole with cockroaches roaming the floor, worn furniture, and a bathroom down the hall if you were lucky.

  Vera had come to visit a couple of times, only she and Cindy didn’t seem to hit it off too good. It didn’t bother him that much, because Vera now talked about Paolo as though he was some kind of hero. It pissed him off. “What you gonna do when he gets out of the can and beats the shit outa you again?” he had questioned.

  “Aw, c’mon, Gino, people change,” Vera had whined.

  Yeh. And pussy grew on trees.

  Business-wise, Bonnatti had kept his word and his connections open. The talk was that the trouble he was experiencing in Chicago was encouraging him to forge new strong ties in the East. Aldo and Gino were his key connections. He had already told them that when he came in at the end of the month he had big plans.

  Meanwhile, Gino kept a tight rein on the liquor runs from New Jersey. He was experiencing trouble—the hijacking situation had never been so bad—but they were lucky. He brought in a new enforcer called Red, who had recently left Detroit and seemed loyal. Not a maniac like Pinky Banana, who was lying low. After all his threats, nothing had been heard of him—although Aldo had come face to face with him in Fat Larry’s and he had muttered darkly about the revenge that was coming their way. It made Aldo nervous, but Gino just laughed. “The prick’s all mouth,” he said. “He ain’t gonna start somethin’ there’s no way he can finish.”

  “Sure, a mouth with a gun,” Aldo had said miserably. “By the way, Fat Larry said that rich dame bin’ askin’ for you—Mrs. Duke—she got some business or somethin’. You gonna see her?”

  Yeh. He was gonna see her. Nothing to stop him now.

  He stepped in a pile of dog shit and let out a stream of curses as he stopped to scrape his new patent shoes on the side of the curb.

  Mrs. Clementine Duke, I am on my way.

  Carrie

  1928

  “We’re gonna make a movie,” Whitejack said one day.

  “A movie?” Carrie’s eyes widened. “For real?”

  “Sure ’nuff. “ Whitejack grinned. “Thought I mentioned it before.” Only he hadn’t mentioned that it was to be a stag movie, the kind they made in back rooms with a hand-held camera and fiercely hot lights that burned into your flesh. He hadn’t mentioned the fact that Carrie was to be the star, and that she was to accommodate four different men during the course of the twenty-minute production.

  Not that it mattered. Carrie didn’t much care. She was so drugged up by the time Whitejack got her to the sordid little room she would have done anything.

  “This girl’s a natural!” the director exclaimed joyfully. “I shoulda got a dog for her t’work with!”

  Whitejack grinned, stood in the background, and then got very pissed off indeed when at the end of the day his director friend, a short white butterball of a man, attempted to shaft him on the payment. “You cocksucka!” he screamed. “You pay me the dough you promised or I’ll beat your fat white ass to pulp.”

  The director paid up. “Fuck off, nigger,” he sneered, “an’ get your whore outa here.”

  Whitejack shoved the man up against a wall and contemplated doing him damage. Then he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, and took Carrie by the arm and hauled her out of the place.

  It was the end of her film career.

  “She’s costin’ us too much,” Dolly complained a few days later.

  “We’re makin’ plenty,” Whitejack wheedled.

  “Sure we are. But how long you think that gonna last? You looked at her lately? Skinny as a rail, eyes like saucers, arms gettin’ all marked up. We’ve got to get rid of her.”

  “What you mean, get rid of her?”

  “Anyone sees that dumb movie you had her do, it could mean trouble. What is she—sixteen, seventeen? We could be in a real bad position, anyone discover we’re usin’ her like we are. We could go to jail.”

  “Who’s gonna know? She ain’t got no family.” He sipped moodily at his coffee. Dolly was always nagging about Carrie. It got on his nerves. Carrie adored him, and he needed a good solid dose of admiration every day.

  “Listen, black man.” Dolly got up from the kitchen table and placed her hands firmly on her solid hips. “You wanna keep her, go ahead. Only you can say goodbye to our deal. I ain’t prepared to take the risk no longer.”

  Whitejack inspected his nails. “You threatening me, woman?”

  “No, I ain’t threatening, I’m tellin’.” Dolly was not a woman to take any crap. She liked Whitejack and the whole setup, but not enough to risk going to jail over some dumb pickaninny. “I can find us another girl, easy. Got one of twenty, looks fourteen, knocks spots off Carrie. She’s blacker than you an’ hotter than shit. You wanna see her?”

  He was tempted. “Who is she?”

  Dolly grinned to herself. She knew the way to Whitejack’s head was via his cock. For a pimp, he sure liked to indulge. “Just a little find of mine. What d’ya say, black man?”

  He took a gulp of his coffee and made up his mind. Dolly was right. Carrie was becoming more dangerous than she was worth. “What’ll we do with her?”

  Dolly did not flinch. “She’ll have an accident, somewhere away from here.”

  “C’mon,” he objected, “why can’t we just dump her on some hospital doorstep?”

  “Real sharp thinking,” scolded Dolly. “When they straighten the teenage junkie whore out, she can lead the police straight to us.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Oh, yeah? You wanna place a bet on it?”

  He shook his head.

  “A nice clean accident,” Dolly continued. “She could stumble under a trolley car, fall under a subway train, jump off the Brooklyn Bridge…. You can take your choice.”

  Whitejack leaped up from the table. “My choice? I ain’t doin’ it, woman.”

  Dolly’s eyes were like two icy marbles. “Oh, you ain’t, huh?”

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “So I’ll do it, then.”

  They stared at each other. Whitejack liked strong women, but this one beat the band. She was actually ready to kill! He felt a cold tingle all the way down his spine. “When?” he asked.

  Dolly shrugged her ample shoulders, “How about today?”

  “No, not today,” he said hurriedly. “There’s that big party comin’ up this weekend, an’ I don’t want no new girl for that.”

  “Next Monday, then. We’ll start the week off fresh.”

  “Yeah, Monday.” He stared at Dolly, waiting to see if she flinched.

  She didn’t. She stared right back at him with icy eyes. “You want more coffee?” she asked calmly.

  His stomach was churning. He kept his voice even. “Yeah. An’ some eggs—sunny side up.”

  A flicker of a cold smile crossed her face. She knew he was scared shitless. Cowardly nigger. But she loved him anyway. And the sooner little Carrie was out of her way, the better.

  Gino

  1928

  Quite frankly, Gino had never seen a house in New York like it. Well, that was a lie, really, because he had—but only in the movies. It was an imposing brownstone residence, set back behind high railings. Its very facade screamed out money.

  Gino was impressed. Who the hell was this Mrs. Clementine Duke anyway? Some ri
ch broad, for sure. What was the scam? Where was the husband?

  Tentatively he rang the doorbell, taking a comb from his pocket and attending to his hair in the shiny reflection of the brass door knocker. Wouldn’t do to let Mrs. Duke catch a glimpse of him unless he looked his very best.

  The massive front door was opened by an elderly butler. Again Gino was reminded of a Hollywood movie.

  “Yes, sir?” questioned the butler disdainfully.

  He pulled himself up full height and hit the old guy with a steady glare. “Hey, Mrs. Duke around?”

  The butler’s mouth twitched. He was used to young men calling, but certainly not of this type. “Is Mrs. Duke expecting you, sir?”

  “Yeh, she’s expectin’ me.” Gino ran his hand through his thick black hair and was immediately sorry, as his hand was now covered by a thin residue of grease. Surreptitiously he wiped it on the side of his trousers.

  The butler did not miss a move. His lips wavered on the edge of a supercilious smile. “Who shall I say is calling, sir?”

  “Tell her Gino, Gino Santangelo. S-A-N-T-A-N-G-E-L-O.”

  “Very well, sir. Would you wait here, please.”

  For a moment Gino thought he was going to shut the door in his face. But he didn’t.

  Whistling, Gino waited until the old boy was out of sight; then he stepped through the front door into the hall. “Whew! What a joint!” he muttered. Luxury stared him in the face. Marble floors and staircase, crystal chandeliers, expensive portraits on the walls. And this was only the hall! Jeeze! If you knocked the hall off, you could live on the proceeds for years!

  Old Watery Eyes came back then. “Mrs. Duke will see you now, sir. Can I take your coat?”

  “Yeh. Why not?” Gino shrugged his way out of the camel’s hair.

  “Follow me, please.”

  He fell into step behind the butler. They moved through the marble hallway, up the marble stairs, and into a room that resembled a country garden. The butler announced him and discreetly withdrew.

  Mrs. Duke sat in a high-backed white wicker chair, surrounded by palms and ferns. She gave Gino a long icy stare. “You’re late. I said I received visitors between eleven and twelve, and it is now”—she paused and glanced meaningfully at a clock on the mantel—“exactly twelve forty-four.”